


The Devil On Your Back

by Sismyn



Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Cancer, Child Abuse, Emetophobia, Gen, Gun Violence, Homophobia, Jesse Manes Being an Asshole, M/M, Poison, a day in the limelight, some indulgent Jesse Manes murder, vengeance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-07
Updated: 2019-10-07
Packaged: 2020-11-26 14:56:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20932094
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sismyn/pseuds/Sismyn
Summary: Five times Jesse Manes was murdered and one time he was sentenced to rot in Leavenworth.





	The Devil On Your Back

**Author's Note:**

> Title source: [shake him off.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCWnVznnWcs)  
Came about due to [this](michael-runs-hot-guerin.tumblr.com/post/188185055879/here-you-go-63k-words-please-heed-the) tumblr post, recursively linked!

* * *

**i**

Her patience had been wearing thin for a long time. She knew she could very well end up a statistic. But when her baby boy came home from first grade prattling about how he'd kissed a boy during recess, and Jesse slapped him so hard one of his molars came out, well, she lost whatever semblance of patience she had. 

She placed herself between Alex and her husband and screamed, "You _ ever _ lay a hand on any of our sons again, and we are _ gone_, do you understand me?"

"If he--"

"No! No conditions, that is _ it! _You touch him and we are _ done_, Jesse Manes!"

Her husband's mouth went thin, even as Alex sobbed into the fabric of her skirt.

"Do you understand?"

He only sneered and turned away, and she stared at his back. He would do it again, she knew. Once he was out of the room, she picked up Alex and checked his mouth. 

"How do you feel, baby?"

"Hurts. Tastes bad. Mommy, d-did I do something bad again?"

_ Again?_

"No, baby, your daddy was wrong. He's never going to do that again." She carried him to the kitchen and set him on the counter. She filled a cup with warm water and added a little salt. "Swish real gentle with this, okay?"

He put some in his mouth and immediately spat it back out. "Yucky!"

"Go on, baby, it'll stop the bleeding."

He looked up at her and trusted her. He did as she said.

He trusted her, so she had to make sure Jesse really never hurt him again. She would only have one chance. She eyed the knife block, not sure she could overpower her husband. There was the gun safe in the hall, but she would have to get close with it to make sure he didn't survive it, and there was something about gunpowder residue that would surely give her away. Flint's baseball bat on the living room floor presented the same problem as the knives. 

"All done, Mommy," Alex said, holding the cup out to her. 

She smiled and put it aside to hug him. "Good job, baby." She eyed the cup, an idea forming in her head. For now, she had to protect Alex. "Why don't we get you an early dinner and then you go to your room and rest? We'll put your tooth under the pillow for the tooth fairy, and you can play your Gameboy."

Usually her children argued about early bedtimes, but he must have understood how serious she was because he nodded. "Okay, Mommy. I'm tired. If I swished the yucky stuff, do I still have to brush my teeth?"

"Yes, baby, just not where your tooth came out, okay? What do you want for dinner?"

"Mac and cheese!"

"Oh, of course, I could've guessed." She smiled down at him and kissed his forehead. "Here you are, get the milk for Mommy."

* * *

She had an old prescription of his from some minor surgery or another in the back of the medicine cabinet. She crushed every last pill in the bottle to a fine dust and poured it into her husband's nightly glass of scotch. 

She brought it to him all casual-like and watched like the grim reaper as his throat closed up and he choked.

The boys were all in bed. She went to each room and poked her head in. "Hey, Daddy's gotta go to the hospital, you guys stay in your rooms and don't worry, all right? I'll be back by morning."

She went back to the living room and worked herself into a panic. It was easy enough looking at the body of her husband. She called 911. "My husband's not breathing!"

* * *

Jesse Manes was pronounced dead on arrival; it was classed a suicide.

* * *

**ii**

Mara and the others had been biding their time for years and years. She couldn't say for sure how long. Earth years were different. She watched her fellow refugees age, watched as the Manes boy grew into a man and became an even worse monster than Harlan. 

They tortured Tory until he lost control of his powers, one of his greatest fears. They forced him to kill all sorts of creatures, and Mara mourned for him.

_ I will not go with you. When you leave, I will stay behind and see that this place is destroyed. _

She dreamt of her son, her little boy. Despaired for him out there alone, but surely still safe in his pod. 

But the pods would release them automatically. She knew when it was time; she could feel their strong confusion, especially her son's. She was supposed to be there for him! 

_ We have to get to the children. _

The others agreed to Mara's broadcast without hesitation. 

* * *

In the morning, Mara held her hand up to the glass of her cell as Jesse Manes made his rounds alone. Not a single one of them had slept, none of them had even tried; they were too worried about the children. 

She knew Jesse Manes was a cold, cruel man, she knew. She pitied him.

Her hand glowed red and piqued the man's interest. 

The glass made him brave. They didn't understand her power of memories. She wasn't offensive. He matched her hand.

She brought him back to a time where his own father hadn't yet indoctrinated him. Before the abuse he never got treated for, before war twisted him into someone who could hold innocents and believe them to be monsters.

This little boy had learned to follow orders at a young age. Mara pitied him. 

"Jesse," she said, in a tone she'd learned from her husband long ago and had only honed during her time at Caulfield, "Let us out."

He nodded and walked away. Minutes later, every cell door opened. Mara gathered all but Tory, who could no longer touch for fear of causing their deaths. They linked their hands.

"Are you sure?" Mara asked him.

He nodded and tapped on the keypad of his cell. It labeled him N-38. "I will set off their alarm. You escape. Take the nice guard. Find our children."

The 'nice guard' in question was actually a police deputy, and they were fortunate enough to find him on their way out. He gaped at the refugees, but immediately turned around and waved them along.

_ We're safe, Tory. Do what you must. _

Alarms began to scream.

* * *

Jesse Manes returned to the cells just as Tory pressed the button, and the bells woke him up from his daze. It took him a minute to register the empty and open rooms, as well as the sad alien before him.

"I am sorry for you," Tory told him, and he sincerely was. "You humans think everything is aggression because that is what humans do. But we were trying to escape violence. We didn't come here to hurt anyone."

He did not care if he died of a bullet or of being vaporized along with the building. He only wanted to make sure that this evil man would not pursue his family. He used what little telekinesis he had to make Jesse's gun stick in its holster.

"What have you done, monster? What have you released on humanity?"

Tory sighed. He needed to keep focus on the gun. "A mother looking for her son. Brothers who haven't touched since they were adolescents. Sisters who lost their parents and their children on two separate planets. Broken families. You do not have to worry about what they will inflict on humanity. _ You _ held us, tortured us. We know the difference, though you tried to erase it. Just as we aren't all evil, so aren't humans."

"More words than any of you have spoken all these decades."

He smiled. "We spoke. You didn't listen. You still don't." His telekinesis gave out, but there was no way Jesse Manes would escape in time. Tory took the bullet to the head proudly.

* * *

Jesse Manes was reportedly killed in action.

* * *

**iii**

Michael didn't understand why Alex's father approached him this way. That was his own flesh and blood he was choking the life out of! His own son, legally still a child--

He glanced at Alex, the tears in his eyes, the whispered "run" no doubt aimed at him. He looked back to Jesse Manes, who was ignoring him completely. This was a military man, he knew, so if he figured Michael out, he'd be in major trouble. 

Subtlety, he had to be subtle. He couldn't just throw him into the wall. Michael squinted and focused on the back of the man's head, and Manes released Alex and doubled over before he fell to the ground. Alex gasped for breath and covered his neck, trying to crawl up the post and away from his assailant.

Michael squeezed harder.

"What's--" Alex cut off his hoarse question, and Michael stopped. His stomach heaved over the fine use of his power, but he refused to throw up there. He slid to the ground without taking his eyes off of Alex's father. Alex knelt beside Michael. "How did-- Are you-- Are you okay?"

He nodded, afraid that he was too nauseous to reply verbally. He reached for Alex, who leaned into his touch and covered his hand with his own.

"I'm okay. I'm used to it."

Michael frowned up at the ceiling. He craved acetone. He didn't like what Alex was saying. His head was swimming.

"I have to call an ambulance for him. He had a stroke or something."

God, he hoped it'd look like a stroke. He swallowed thickly and thought he might be able to speak. "Okay."

"He's still breathing, I think."

"He looked like he was gonna kill you."

Alex got his cell and sat on the floor beside Michael again. "He wouldn't have. He hasn't so far."

He made an odd noise and wrapped his arms around Alex's shoulders. "I didn't know this is what you meant when you said things suck at home. M-Made me sick."

Alex rubbed his back. "You should finish getting dressed before the paramedics get here." He spoke to the 911 operator as Michael pulled his t-shirt and jacket back on. He was decent by the time Alex snapped his phone shut. "Was it you?"

"What?" Michael squeaked. 

Alex nodded at his father on the floor. "Did you do that somehow?"

His nausea returned in full force. "What? Give your dad a stroke? H-How would I--"

"Don't care how right now. I wanna know if you saved me."

Michael looked down. "I had to stop him. I thought he was gonna kill you."

They could already hear the sirens. Alex kissed Michael's temple. "Thank you."

Medics came in. A few focused on his father, but one went to the boys on the floor in front of the futon. "You kids all right?" she asked. 

Michael nodded but shook his head when Alex did the same. "He was _ choking _ him!"

"I'm fine," Alex insisted. 

The blonde woman frowned. Behind her, several medics heaved Jesse Manes onto a gurney. She made to lift Alex's chin, and he flinched away. 

"Honey, I'm not going to hurt you, I want to help."

Alex shook his head and drew his knees in. "I'm all right. I don't need help."

"Let her look, Alex, please," Michael said. He laid a gentle hand on his bicep, and Alex looked at him, his earnest expression. He bared his neck with a sniff.

The woman's gloved fingers traced the bruises on his neck. "Are you having any difficulty breathing?"

"Not anymore," he mumbled.

She retreated, looking purely sympathetic, and said, "Your father seems to have had a stroke, just like you thought. He's gone into a vegetative state, but we will do everything we can to bring him back."

Alex merely blinked at her. He jerked his head at Michael. "Do you mind if I hug him?"

"Why would I mind?" she said serenely as she stood. "The sheriff will be along soon."

Alex threw his arms around Michael, and Michael was caught in his vice grip (something he had experience with, actually). He didn't mind. He held onto Alex just as tightly. 

* * *

An hour later, Jesse Manes was pronounced dead from complications due to stroke.

* * *

**iv**

Jim Valenti was fed up. He'd never been able to help Alex, and it turned out that Jesse Manes was illegally holding _ people _ \-- alien or not -- at an abandoned prison, well, he was done, and he made sure Manes knew it. 

So Jesse threw his weight behind his opponent during the election.

Jim still won, and Manes came to him again. He stood and crossed his arms at the man who lurked in the doorway. 

"An alien killed Rosa. Your own _ child_."

"It wasn't any of the ones you have captive," the sheriff spat back.

"You have to see them, Jim, they're all the same. Evil incarnate."

It was a trap, and he knew it. He agreed to meet him at the prison and made a few calls as soon as the awful man was out of the station.

* * *

Manes led Jim through the halls as if they were on a pleasant museum tour instead of in an alien concentration camp. With every word his former friend spoke, Jim wanted to scream. 

"This is where we do the medical testing."

"This is the morgue."

"This is where my son Flint is designing a bomb that targets alien DNA." Jim nearly balked at the fact that he'd brought his son in for a genocide project. Did the others know, too?

"This is where we keep the prisoners." 

Jim noted the door label, the elderly captives from the original crash who paced their cells like feral animals. He wondered if they could be rehabilitated. He hoped so, since that was his plan. They stopped in front of a cell labeled "N-38". 

"This one is _ highly _ dangerous."

"This is an elderly man. He could be my grandfather."

Manes shook his head and dialed a code into the keypad beside the door. The glass slid open.

The alien inside recoiled, and Jim realized what he was trying to do. He ducked and swept the Airman's legs out from under him. He fell to the floor and the man darted forward and pressed a glowing hand to his forehead; he began to shake uncontrollably. Jim dragged Manes out by the ankle and slapped at the keypad. The door closed.

"What did he do?" he demanded.

"Valenti," he gasped out before he lost consciousness.

"Shit. Hello! Hello?" Jim pinched the bridge of his nose. Manes hadn't wanted any more witnesses than necessary, so they were the only two humans in the cell block. He looked around and saw a camera blinking down at them. He hadn't brought backup, but he'd left the cameras on. Cocky asshole.

He was still breathing, so Jim retraced their steps until he found Flint.

"You should call an ambulance for your father. Or maybe a chopper. Y'all got those?"

The boy's eyes widened. God, he was a boy, just a couple years older than his Kyle. "What? What happened?"

"Well, your father is a genocidal maniac who just tried to kill me by putting me in a cell with an alien, which backfired as such things do when you torture innocents."

Flint scrambled for a phone. "Was-- Was it N-38?"

"That's right. Why?"

"That one, it, uh, it causes rapid onset cancer."

"Flint, if I might offer you some advice, get out of this. This is Geneva waiting to happen."

"Sheriff, all due respect, but the conventions end at the upper atmosphere. Excuse me." Flint ordered a chopper, and Jim waited until he hung the phone up to continue. 

"Son, these are refugees at worst, passers through at best. If a plane on its way to Japan from South Africa crashed down in Death Valley, you wouldn't round everyone up and perform experiments on them, would you?"

"They aren't _ human_. They're dangerous. We have research to back it up!"

"It's 2014, Flint. Everyone is dangerous. You're dangerous. I'm dangerous. But I'm not gearing up for genocide. Get out of this."

Flint looked down the hall. "I can't."

"Why not? I don't want to see you go down for this, son, you're a bright young man and you can do so much better."

His voice dropped to a whisper. "He's blackmailing me. I can't."

Jim could feel his blood boiling. He held out his hand. "I'll help you. I'll protect you from him."

Flint hesitated, but he took his hand, and they shook on it. 

* * *

A month later, Jesse Manes slowly wasted away in a private hospital room. His thoughts were scrambled. He'd convinced a nurse to give him a notebook and squeezed writing into every blank space he could. People had to know about the aliens. They had to know how to protect themselves.

The door opened, and he ducked automatically. 

"What's wrong, dad? Thought you'd be pleased to see your youngest son, since you're on your deathbed and all and I know no one else has visited you."

Alex looked more relaxed than he'd ever seen him. The sight made him nauseous. He leaned over the side of his bed and vomited in a bucket placed there. 

"Gee, Pops. You don't look so good." He sat on the edge of the bed.

"If I was well, you wouldn't be so brave." He spat, "Pervert."

Alex clicked his tongue. "Maybe you're right. I _ am _ gay. You _ are _ dying. But here's the thing. Your legacy includes not a single visit from anyone but your least favorite son. Pathetic. I heard they're not going to bother indicting you, and Jim decided not to charge you with attempted murder. Can you imagine such a worthless legacy? To not even bother pursuing you for your wrongdoings?" Alex sighed. "Oh, and Flint told me to tell you that he's dismantling Shepherd. Asked me to give you this." Alex flipped him off, and Manes tried to lunge, but he was far too weak to even sit up. He began to cough. "Oh, sorry for all the excitement. I'll go now. See you at the funeral, dad. Mom can't wait for the reunion."

Alex left him with a salute and without a backwards glance.

* * *

Jesse Manes died that night, alone and out of his mind.

* * *

**v**

Jenna Cameron had always wondered what she would do if she got blackmailed. She kinda figured there wasn't anything worth it. 

But Jesse Manes knew about Charlie and threatened her. 

Geez, she probably would have assisted him if he _ hadn't _ threatened her. But _ no one _ threatened her sister.

"I'll help you," she told him automatically, even though she knew she wouldn't. She was a good liar, even if she hated it.

She called her partner. Max was weird, sure, but he was a good guy. Possibly a wizard. Once Charlie was safe, she planned to find out.

"Cam? It's almost one a.m. What's up?"

"You don't sleep," she replied flippantly. She had her car loaded up. "I need you to cover for me. I have to go to Ohio for a couple days, and no one can know."

"Uh, okay. I'll... tell people you caught the flu?" 

"Perfect. Thank you. I'll be back soon."

"No problem."

"And Evans? Tread lightly. You leave _ marks_."

"I what?"

"Bye," she said, and hung up on him.

* * *

Jenna charmed her way to Charlie, and they charmed their way back out. It was like they were never apart. Outside her car, she hugged her sister tightly. "You look like shit."

"Well, I wasn't going to mention it, but you look hot as shit." Charlie patted her back. "Where we going?"

"Roswell, New Mexico."

"Hmm. Kitschy. Fascinating. I'm in."

"I haven't even told you why."

"I'm always in." She caught the change of clothes tossed to her. "But tell me why anyway."

"An Air Force Master Sergeant there threatened you."

"And you came running? Aww, you do love me."

"I couldn't let you get blackbagged. So, still coming?"

"To deal with someone who threatened to blackbag me? I literally can't think of anything better to do."

Jenna grinned and started her car.

* * *

> (Sent) Have info, meet @ old record store tonight
> 
> (MS Manes) ETA 1900

"Where'd you get all the plastic?" Max asked. 

"Dollar Store," Charlie replied gleefully as she spread it all over the floor. "Some things don't change after three years in a hole in the ground."

He leaned heavily on the counter. "She's really your sister?"

Jenna shrugged. "The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb."

Max blinked at her owlishly. "I've never heard anyone use that whole quote in real life."

"Nerds!" Charlie called from somewhere near the door. "Come on, Evans, Charlie Cameron is a fake name if I ever heard one."

Jenna conceded her point with a wave of her hand. "Anyway, don't get too chummy, Evans. You may not have any interplanetary STDs, but I am not happy with you."

Max shrugged. "You have a secret sister, I'm secretly another species, a secret which I've kept without incident for over twenty years, by the way."

"Ha ha," Jenna said humorlessly. "These are definitely equal things."

"I don't enjoy lying about it, not to you, not to anybody. I just... It's hard to trust people when my family could end up dissected, you know?"

She gave half a nod in acknowledgement. 

Charlie stood with her arms outstretched. "Okay, it's ready! This way if we decide to shoot him, we can just roll him up like shit sushi and throw him in a lake."

"We're in the desert," Max said as she crossed the dilapidated store to join him. "No agua."

"Oh, an oasis then. Exotic."

He looked to Jenna, bemused, but she only shrugged. 

"Hopefully it won't come to that. We need to find out what he knows about you -- about, ugh, aliens. We can't just shoot him."

Charlie sighed dramatically. "I would very much like to, though."

"Maybe after. He is a dickhead."

"We can't just shoot people because they're dickheads."

"He's going to provoke me. I can feel it."

"He's not even going to know you're here," Jenna said.

"Doesn't take much for guys like him to provoke me."

Headlights hit the papered store windows, and Max and Charlie ducked behind the counter. Jenna leaned back against it, a far cry from the respect she'd shown for him previously. 

The door opened a moment later. He was right on time. "Evening, Master Sergeant."

She watched him survey the room before stepping in any further, a manila folder in his hand. "Evening, Jenna. Interesting choice of meeting place."

"The information is sensitive, isn't it? This is private. I've made a couple of connections, but I want to know if there's more."

"The terrorist strike on our power supply wasn't enough?"

"I hypothesize that it was accidental, so I'm going to need more."

Manes snorted and offered her the folder. In it were over a dozen pictures of bodies and death certificates. 

"What's this?"

"Fourteen murders in the past decade that _ I _hypothesize to be attributed to the same terrorist."

She shut the folder. "Why? Have the murders been claimed? What's the evidence?"

He squinted at her. "You ask a lot of questions."

"I'm not your soldier. I'm police, and people have rights."

He made a small noise. "I don't expect you to understand the motives here. It's a matter of national security."

Jenna's eyebrows shot up. "I'm sorry, do you think you want to try explaining the motives before assuming I can't understand? Whose motives? The murderer's? How do you know them?"

Jesse Manes clearly did not like to be denied or argued with. Jenna caught the slightest twitch. "It's classified."

"Is it now?" She cocked her head. A liar. He'd brought Kyle right in, according to Max. She had a sneaking suspicion that Jesse Manes didn't think all that much of her. "Then we have no business here."

Jenna could see him calculating. Was it really such a risk to out and tell her he thought there was an alien serial killer? 

Apparently not. He went into a spiel about the UFO crash from seventy years ago. "They want to destroy the human race," he insisted. "We need to find and exterminate them before more people get hurt."

She opened the folder again. The first was Rosa Ortecho, whose death Max admitted to covering up for his sister. But the rest were unmissed societal nobodies with few, if any, identifying marks. She believed Max when he'd said his sister hadn't had any blackouts since Rosa. Max wasn't a cold-blooded murderer. Michael wasn't the cleanest guy on the planet, but she knew he wasn't a murderer, either.

Then there was that word "exterminate," as if aliens were pesky insects. She put the folder on the counter.

"I'll look into this murderer, but if that's your attitude, I won't be sharing what I find with you."

The Airman sneered. "Then I don't suppose you'll be seeing your friend Charlie for a long, long time."

Charlie sprang up, the revolver Jenna usually kept in her car trained on Jesse Manes. "Wrong! I told you he'd provoke me."

Max, at least, had the sense to stay down. Manes was only stunned for a moment. His hand hovered over his holster. 

Jenna watched, unimpressed. "I'd suggest not. Pair of sharpshooters, us."

"You're both traitors to this country."

"Just like the president," Charlie said, dripping venom. "It's all we have in common."

"Show some respect!"

Jenna rubbed her chin, considering.

"Him first!"

"Enough. Christ. I don't know what kind of people you're so used to being pushovers, but I'm not. Do you want to talk more about what you know about aliens, or would you like to drop the entire matter and leave?"

He scoffed and held his ground. "This project is _ mine_. You'll regret this decision, Cameron."

"The genocide project?"

"There are plenty of them still alive," he said, as if that made it not genocide somehow. 

Jenna narrowed her eyes. "How many? Where?"

"Dozens."

Now Max popped up, his gun aimed at Manes as well. _"Where?"_

He eyed the deputy behind the counter, and his lip curled. He focused back on Jenna. "I see now. You were targeted, just like my youngest son. You're not planning to stop the murderer. You're going to help him."

He reached for his gun, but Jenna drew her weapon in a flash; three scarlet patches blossomed around Manes' sternum simultaneously. Her partners had fired, too. He fell face first to the floor.

"Welp." Jenna rolled him over with the toe of her boot as Charlie and Max rounded the counter. "Who's his youngest son? What was he talking about?"

He scratched his head. "Alex Manes, I think. My brother's been, like... in love with him? I guess? Since high school or something."

"Huh. So he's a homophobe, too."

"Cool, I always wanted to kill a homophobic dickwad," said Charlie, also poking Manes with her boot. His blood was pooling on the plastic. "More importantly, do we know where this guy lived? We could drive his car back, throw investigators off the scent."

"_We're _ the investigators," Jenna said, indicating herself and Max. 

"Nah, he's Air Force, they'd bring in their NCIS equivalent."

"Only if they find the body," Max pointed out.

"Charlie, your flask," Jenna said, holding out her hand. Her sister dropped the metal bottle there, and Jenna took a swig. "Okay. Car, yes. Body, there's plenty of desert. Do you think we can trust Alex?"

"We _ did _ just kill his dad," Charlie said. 

"I'll talk to Michael about him, and we'll find out. If there are really other aliens still alive, they could help us, but we'll need someone on the inside."

Jenna nodded; her thoughts exactly. "You guys pick up your casings?"

"Do we look like amateurs?" Charlie rolled her eyes. 

"Let's roll some shit sushi, then."

* * *

Jesse Manes was proclaimed AWOL two days later with no suspicion of foul play. His body was never found.

* * *

**vi**

"Tried to be polite." Alex pivoted on his titanium leg, a maneuver he'd been practicing for precisely such occasion, and cracked dear old dad's skull with his crutch. He let out a relieved sigh as FBI agents filed out. 

"Was that necessary?" asked the woman in charge, Sherrie Delaware. 

"Incredibly," Alex replied. "You can take it if you like. I only brought it because it makes him think I'm weak."

She shook her head and waved her agents forward to handcuff the Chief. "You are a scary man, Captain."

He grinned back. "Thanks, Delaware. Now let's find out what the hell he's been doing."

* * *

"He's targeting civilians. This-This is a personal vendetta of hatred." Alex struggled to control his temper for the first time in a long time as he stared up at Michael's mugshot. He wished he'd hit his father harder.

"You know him?"

Alex stood and scrubbed a hand over his mouth. She was queer herself, so he felt safe explaining. He turned to her and said quietly, "I've known Michael Guerin since we were kids. He's the only man I've ever loved. When I was seventeen, my dad caught us together and maimed his hand with a hammer. He still has the scars."

Delaware growled and pressed the button on her headset. When she finished firing off orders, she crossed her arms. "Take him off the threat list immediately. Keep digging."

The next two files puzzled him momentarily. "Isobel and Max are his friends. They don't even have a record. Max is _ police_. All they're guilty of is associating with Michael."

She nodded curtly. "Remove them too."

He gladly erased all references to the three civilians in the Project Shepherd files. 

"Let's start at the beginning," Alex mused aloud. The earliest files he could find, hidden beneath as pathetic an encryption as the rest of his father's systems, were scans of photographs from autopsies done in 1947, the same year as the UFO crash. More things he couldn't explain. Inhuman things. "So... actual aliens, then."

"Yup," Delaware confirmed. 

"The operation was shut down by the Pentagon eight years ago. Cut funding. No more aliens?"

"Or did they cost too much to pursue and were demoted as an official threat?"

Alex sighed. "There are maybe a terabyte's worth of files on here to go through. I'll set up flags for autopsies, bodies, and sites. Any other priorities?"

"Transfers of money greater than, say, ten thou. Let's look through the physical files, shall we?"

The contents of filing cabinets around the room were being emptied into labeled boxes on the large, metal table in the middle of the bunker. 

They found more than enough evidence to send Jesse Manes to a deep dark hole to rot for the rest of his life. 

* * *

A week later, Jesse Manes was handcuffed to a cot in a small cell with no windows. He'd been there for six days. He counted guards as they passed. It was a pattern. Twice an hour.

All thanks to his perverted, demonic son.

His count was off; this guard was early. A tall blonde woman -- decidedly not a guard -- stopped in front of his cell. She leaned against the door and smiled too sweetly.

"Isobel Evans."

"Master Sergeant Jesse Manes. Ooh, formerly. You remember me. Aw. You won't remember much of anything soon enough."

"Are you threatening me?"

"I'm just making your worst nightmare come true." She narrowed her eyes, and the cell was suddenly brightly lit and inside out. "Whoops. I'm such a bad alien."

"You won't get away with this."

"Oh? What am I doing? Show me your son."

He saw his firstborn before them in his fatigues, highly decorated, a real Manes Man. Isobel flicked her hand, and there was his second son. A real Manes Man. Again, and there was Flint. A real Manes Man. A final flick, and there was Alex, seven years old, before Jesse knew he was a sick, disgusting boy. He knew now that he couldn't be fixed.

Isobel knelt beside the child and gathered him into her arms, something he could never stand to do after he found out. Not that he was ever a hugger. All he could do was sneer at her.

"I heard Alex wasn't going after you despite the decades of abuse. He told Michael that taking you down for Shepherd was enough, that it was okay. Michael told me it wasn't. I'm here to make sure _ you _ don't get away with it." She smoothed back the child's black hair and fixed her gaze on Jesse. "Show me the first time you hit him."

They watched that little kid come home and talk about the other boy he'd kissed with that dreamy, nauseating expression that Jesse knew had to be punished, had to be nipped in the bud. He struck his son in front of his wife, which he'd always known was his mistake. He should have sent her away and done it in his room like he usually did. 

Instead of packing a suitcase and leaving them then and there like he remembered, she brought him his usual nightcap after dinner, and he drank it and watched himself choke to death. 

He knew it hadn't happened, but he could feel his throat burning.

"Oops. Show me Caulfield. Yes, we found it, and now aaall of the evil aliens are free."

Jesse balked. "They will destroy the human race."

"Show me Caulfield," she snapped.

This memory wasn't long after the last one. It stuck out to him because the captives had been acting strangely all night. 

"Not that it's any of your business, but that's the night we hatched."

Nothing had happened in the prison that day. Yet, the memory altered as he made sure the cells were secure. A female alien raised its hand to the glass, glowing as it was using its power. 

Curiosity got the best of him. This one was never particularly aggressive. He raised his hand and suddenly they were both much younger. She was his mother's age. She told him to let them out, and how could he imprison someone who could be his own mother? 

He obediently went to the control room and opened all the doors. He wanted his mom. Maybe that nice lady would know where she was.

He returned downstairs just as the quarantine alarms went off. He was not a child. These monsters could never be his family. 

One remained. N-38. It was talking to him, but he didn't listen; Jesse went for his gun. He couldn't pull it out until it was too late to go after the others. Fine, he'd go down with his ship, and the others would pick up the work and go after them. He emptied his clip into the alien's head. Fire licked at him before he lost awareness.

Jesse returned to the inside out jail cell gasping and sure he was aflame. 

"Stop, drop and roll, Dick Head," Isobel said. She scoffed. "Quarantine protocols. You're really a credit to your species. Tory's actually still alive, but he gave me the idea. We'll come back to Caulfield, I think. First, show me why you hurt Michael."

Jesse saw that shitty blue truck in his driveway and knew it belonged to that no-good Guerin boy. He found him and Alex in the toolshed, stinking of perverted action and happy about it, which would not do. He thought Alex had learned. He picked up the hammer and pinned Alex to the post by his throat when he yelled. 

Instead of pushing him off like he remembered, the Guerin boy narrowed his eyes at him just as Isobel had a few minutes -- hours? -- ago. His arm fell without his permission as he felt a pressure at the base of his skull. He folded like a house of cards. He couldn't feel the left side of his body. He saw himself die in the hospital.

"Oops," said Isobel. 

"Stop," he rasped out.

"Nah. Show me what you did to Jim Valenti."

Caulfield rose up around them again, the glass cells just as before but their occupants were decades older. He and Jim stood outside of N-38's cell, and he opened the door. But rather than pushing him in without a fight, Jim ducked and knocked Jesse to the ground, where the prisoner attacked him instead Valenti.

His head throbbed. He watched himself fall unconscious, only to wake up in what he assumed was Jim's hospital room -- except he was in the bed. The headache grew worse, and the memory skipped like a fast forwarded video. By the time his life left him, mere hours after Alex visited, he was on his knees from the pain in his head.

"Stop!"

"No," Isobel said cheerfully. "You paid it forward, Chief, it's your turn. Show me when you met Jenna Cameron. This last one is a fun one. You ever meet her sister? She's a riot."

Cameron had provided the biggest break in the case with her tip to look into Max Evans. She was _ useful_. But rather than the text he remembered, it was a request for a meeting at the abandoned record store.

He could only watch as he drove there. This would end like the other memories; Isobel was torturing him. He knew, he knew, and yet when three pistols fired into his chest simultaneously, he was still surprised that it hurt so much.

"I'm sorry for you, actually," Isobel said. She stood over him now. "I'm having so much fun with this, and you're miserable. Oh, I've got something for you from my brother." She reared back and kicked him in the flank, which was about a thousand times more painful than it should've been. He was splitting open.

"Monster."

Isobel squatted beside him with a smile. "I'm only returning your favor. It's over now. It's all over now. Alex shut down your little pet project, good as destroyed it. Your other sons are out of it, too. Alex and Michael are making up. I give 'em six months before they're married. My family is getting rehabilitated on the government's dime. And you're going to rot at Leavenworth in solitary for the rest of your sad little life."

"Too cowardly to kill me?"

"I just killed you five times. Remember?" She pulled the altered memories to the front of his mind as she patted his cheek. "You'll have plenty of time to reflect on that."

Then she was gone.

Poisoned.

Obliterated.

Stroke.

Cancer.

Three bullets to the chest.

Poisoned.

Obliterated.

Stroke.

Cancer.

Three bullets to the chest.

By morning, he'd happily take one to the head.

**Author's Note:**

> So the canon divergence is at vi. I hope it's not confusing, but I'm not implying that Tory is Mara's husband, he said "our children" because, like, it takes a village.  
PS no one SAid her name is Charlie Cameron and frankly I find it suspect that Manes said "your friend" instead of "your sister". Now I think there are multiple possibilities but for this fic I went with, they're not actually related. Hell, let's combine it with the other possibility - Charlie's a trans woman and Manes is a dick head who knew better than to misgender her in front of Jenna. Anyway!  
Thanks for reading!


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